Laura Blackburne will forever be linked to a $3,100 pink leather couch.

The couch was more than just an easily ridiculed part of Blackburne’s $356,000 office renovation when she was head of the city Housing Authority in 1992. It became a symbol of an official out of touch with fiscal reality in a strapped city.

From the very start of her term, Blackburne’s opulence frequently embarrassed Mayor David Dinkins. Her 1990 “inauguration gala” cost $12,800.

The next year, she spent $25,000 to crisscross the country, staying at $350-a-night hotels.

The excesses didn’t end there. She was caught spending $3,100 in public funds on a junket to South Africa, and then did not reimburse the city after Dinkins ordered her to do so.

And she took seven aides on a junket to Puerto Rico – at a cost of $16,000.

Eventually, she resigned.

Blackburne was elected to a 10-year term on the Queens Supreme Court bench in 1996. She now presides over a drug-treatment court that offers offenders an alternative to jail. Sources said her transfer was a demotion.

Blackburne is best known to the law-enforcement community for her infamous 2002 release of William Hodges, who was awaiting trial for shooting a cop. She said his right to a speedy trial was violated.